Really, Sir?! Geraldo Rivera Claims Hip-Hop Is More Harmful To Black People Than Racism

Geraldo Rivera is certain that hip-hop has done far more to hurt the Black community over the years than racism ever could.

Leave it to a FOX News talking head to tell Black America about itself.

Geraldo, who wants you to know that he is a “militant moderate” that voted for President Barack Obama three times, that an art form created by Black people is actually destroying us from the inside. “Hip-hop has done more damage to Black and brown people than racism in the last 10 years,” Geraldo told Huffington Post Live.

He continued his argument, challenging anyone to find a person of color from an urban area that “has succeeded in life other than being the one-tenth of one-tenth of one percent that make it in the music business — that’s been a success in life walking around with his pants around his a*s and with visible tattoos.”

Yep, Geraldo thinks racism has been more detrimental to Black people than the rampant police brutality and grossly misplaced vigilantism that has killed Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Sean Bell and countless others. Should we even mention how one NYPD officer was seen choking a pregnant woman in front of her child all for daring to grill food in front of her own house? When framed against these instances, it’s not entirely clear how Gerald can make the argument that appearance is what’s holding us back.

The logic is a little hard to swallow, and not even he could hold up the argument throughout his entire spiel. “I love Russell Simmons,” Geraldo noted. “He’s a dear friend of mine. I admire his business acumen.”

He still found a way to bring the Black community’s economical ills back to hip-hop. “At some point, those guys have to cop to the fact that by encouraging this distinctive culture that is removed from the mainstream, they have encouraged people to be so different from the mainstream that they can’t participate other than, you know, the racks in the garment center and those entry-level jobs,” said Geraldo. “I lament it. I really do. I think that it has been very destructive culturally.”